


In The Summer

by Go0se



Series: Spaces She Leaves [7]
Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: (one more than the other but that's an aside), Also inspired by Panic! At The Disco, First Kiss, Haircuts, Hoodie!Sarah, Kissing in the Rain, Look I promise this isn't creepypasta okay just trust me, Medication, POV Second Person, People who slowly develop romantic feelings when they’re not trying to kill anyone, Slice of Life, Timeline What Timeline, Trees
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-23 21:24:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6130546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Go0se/pseuds/Go0se
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You're around the girl in the forest for a long time, longer than you can remember staying around anyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Summer

**Author's Note:**

> Direct sequel of "Frequencies".  As some of you may be able to guess 'cause there's zero chance I am the only bandom nerd in this place, the title and some quotes in the story are based on a Panic! At The Disco song, called "When The Day Met The Night".  
> Once again finger-pointing / special mentions go to [mistresspiece](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/mistresspiece). Thank you for your support, friend.
> 
> ==

 

In the middle of summer the air stinks with heat from the dirt up. Especially all around you. It's not a new feeling--when you live most of your waking life running sweat gets very familiar--but you've never been this aware of it before.

Then again, you've never really had company before.

You're not _alone,_ with Timothy like a shadow beat to your heart and you his shadow most of the time, but this is different. The girl you met in the woods is different. She looks at you and sees your face as it is on the outside; Timothy's face, but not. She can tell when it’s you.

 

It's almost a separate language, everything she can't seem to stop speaking, like a flood. Even though some of the meaning must get dragged under in the riptide, you understand. You know. Like the way you know that the woods shift around you.

Most of what she speaks about, at first, is survival. She'd explained about reflections on the first night you'd met and chased each other through the dark, then ran together. She'd always seen Nothing first, and you'd ran from it, keeping close as you could. She’d spoken haphazardly, short bursts of words like smoke that spilled from her uncovered mouth, her black mask shoved up over her face so you'd hear her clearer.

You'd sat hunched together under branches with angry rocks sharpening themselves on your hands, the air chilling as the shadows crowded around you both, and you had understood. Camoflauge. Mirrors. You need something to cover your breath and your self and your eyes.

 

That was why you've come out here, now; on a leafy path just inside the treeline, in the park that you’d crawled out of the morning after the first long night. You have a packet the size of some of Timothy's textbooks crinkling under your arm.

She isn’t here, but she’s around somewhere. You’ll wait until she comes to meet you. You want to show her something.

 

The masks you'd chosen weren't anything special, just the ones closest to the front of the craft store you'd walked into like you were walking into a trap. All the bright lights had been flickering overhead and you'd been shaking infinitesimally in your shoulders in a way that people couldn't see from the outside, but you had felt anyway and couldn't stop. Seeing so many faces at once made you nervous. It makes Timothy nervous, too, although he'd managed it for a long time. You remember what he does. You manage.

The prize you take for your fear is a dozen smooth, blank faces made of sculpted plastic. You take the full dozen because you’re going to lose at least some. You've never been careful.

 

You’re looking them over when she walks up to meet you. You turn on instinct, and almost drop all the masks to the ground when you see someone behind you where only air had been before. Your first instinct is _attack,_ but then you recognize her, so you stop.

 

She doesn’t greet you, only tilts her head briefly. Her mask is dark and blood-coloured, woolen. She hangs it from a tree limb nearby where you're standing. The uninterrupted sunlight from the field behind you is slightly dappled here, and her mask looks almost gory, diseased from the shadows. Eyes and a mouth draped without a person behind it. Still, it serves its purpose.

 

Yours need to serve a purpose, too. You’re not sure if they do or not. You’d came here to ask her about them. When you pull the first out of the bag, you hold it in one hand and scratch your neck with the other. (Timothy does that when he’s jittery-nervous. You hadn’t known you did too, before.)

She shakes her head in confusion and you realize your mistake, pulling it on quickly. It's a little ill-fitted. You have to angle it oddly to see out of the eyes. Framed by the white plastic edges, she looks like a cut-out from a movie. Especially when she steps closer, incredulously.

 

You look like the moon, she says.

 

The moon's blank and eyeless and you think of all the tall trees you’d seen, craning your head, with it in their branches--only to have it _move._ Under the mask, you frown.

Hours later, at Timothy's home, you sit with the mask and a marker. The marker is black, like the one you'd left your message on the mirror with, a long time ago now, but not actually the same. Timothy had long since thrown that one away. He tries to rid himself of any evidence of you but still you linger.

You consider the mask for a while, thinking how to change it. Eventually you decide on tracing around the eyes and sculpted lips of the plastic. It feels true, distinctive. Your own eyes are so heavy-- Timothy's even worse-- and you didn't speak often but Nothing _never_ spoke. There'd be no mistaking you for It this way.

You try the mask on again and go to the mirror to look at yourself. It's almost unsettling, seeing the same body and shoulders Timothy has always had with a new face above it. But it's your face, now. Its starkness sets you apart. The importance is the protection it gives but even still, you find you like it as an object as well as a tool.

You stay awake that night pulling face after identical face out of the HallowHouse bag, tracing the same lines over and over. You're used to repetition. This work is quieter than usual.

The last one's done by morning. You stretch your sore hand, sit back and study them. Twelve images of yourself look back. Good.

 

You hide them in a sack in the back of Timothy's over-burdened sweater drawer. With a second thought you leave one under the front seat of Timothy's car, and another on the wide inside pocket of a jacket that you favour for its warmth and resistance to tearing. When Nothing comes you rarely ever have warning; it'd be best to keep mirrors wherever you can. That includes the woods, since you end up pulled there so often. Fine.

You think you even have somewhere you can leave them, now, if you ask.

 

You show up, again, at the cracked concrete lot on the edge of the park the next morning. The air seems thin. Your vision's beginning to blur from all the brightness.

 

She's already there, sitting in a sunny patch under a tree right near the lot with her hands on her knees. She's turned away. There's a split second where you can see her but she's not yet noticed you. Her sweater's hood is loose on her shoulders; the light catching her hair, burning it gold.

You think, if you're the moon then she looks like the sun; yellows and red and frenzied movement in its core only barely visible from looking at it. Difficult, maybe, to look at for long.

With the masks under your arm you don't reflect anything. You get out of the car.

 

By the time the door makes its announcing slam she's already stood and turned toward you. Her own mask is shoved into her pocket, along with her gloves. Her hands are pale interconnected pieces she holds loosely at her sides. She walks to the edge of the parking lot concrete and stops, questioning.

It's still odd, to you, to be looked at with eyes. Words you could say sit near the back of your throat, ones like _you were right,_ or _how do you keep knowing when I'll be here_.

But you think she already knows the first and couldn't answer the second one better than she already had.  ( _Flood,_ she'd said. _Forest fire._ ) So instead you only hold up a mask, the first you made with its new completeness obvious now, and then you hold up a small canvas bag where more of them clink dully inside.

 

She considers you, holds her hand out for the bag. Unsurprised, of course.

Your hands bump together when you pass it over. Hers is slightly warmer than the air around the both of you, and very dry.

Your fingers are still sweating from hanging onto the steering wheel in Timothy's car. You let go of the strap of the bag only after you're sure she has it, not wanting the night's work to crack and fracture after a fall.

  
She doesn't let it fall. She slings it over her shoulder and then turns, unconcerned, moving off into the woods.

 

You watch her for a second, then go back to the car.

You realize when you sit behind the wheel again that you’re going to switch soon. You haven’t slept for over a day, which doesn’t help, and the storm is gathering. Wavering spots of light are starting to blink into existence wherever you look and the pressure of non-air in your lungs is building up again. You know well enough: you can push forward when you want to wake up and stepping back is simple, too, but sometimes you don't have that choice.

It's getting dangerous to drive. Still, you’re not too tired; you manage all the way back to the house and even inside, falling onto the couch in the living room just as the spasming starts.

 

*

 

Next time you wake up in the forest it's been a long night full of terror and blurs that make no sense when your mind tries to solve them.

This isn't unusual. You'd rushed forward, knocking Timothy under and managing to grab your mask before the warning signs of cold and a pain in your chest had had time to get much worse, and then there was a jerk in your spine as the world spun under your feet and stopped making sense. The mask helped a little; it didn't seem to capture you and pull you around as much as it had in the past. And, it seems like, it lets go of you quicker.

But you might be wrong. Your sense of time has always been skewed. Lately more than normal. Even for you.

 

Whatever the time, the first thing you see when you come to consciousness again is grass and crushed flowers spattered with blood from your mouth.

The second, when you heave yourself around so you can see something more of where you are, is her.

  
She’s waiting over in the foliage, half-obscured by the trees. When she sees you looking at her, she steps out. She walks over and helps you upright.

Moving is dizzying. Your whole nose is full of plastic fumes. You take off your camoflauge; the thin rubber band that holds it together sticks to your hair for a minute, making you grimace. You wipe your forehead and the grating hair at the side of your face with the back of your hand.

You need to go home.

She stands just away from you and waits.

You don't know how to say anything that might need to be said, here, especially since when you're on your feet again she starts walking away like she expects you to follow.  
So far, all of the things she's said to you have been true. You decide to go along.

 

The path she leads you on becomes familiar quickly. At some point, you're not exactly sure when, she starts walking behind you instead of ahead. She doesn't say anything, but you think you understand: the shadows are heavier there. You get used to listening for the pattern of her footsteps on the leaves. You find yourself waiting for her at the bends in the path, pausing when the steps are more distant. You don't want to be apart from her. It's better not to be alone. You aren't sure how to say that out loud, so you don't.

It still seems mutual. When you pause at the edge of the parking lot, she hesitates for a brief second, but then keeps following you.

  
On the way back to Timothy's house you look over your shoulder every so often to see if she's slipped off somewhere. She doesn't.

Arriving at the front door you pause for a second, wanting to say _goodbye_ or _thank you_. She pauses too; so much of what you two do echoes each other. What you do instead of vocalising anything is give her a short nod. To the point, you think. 

She’s looking at the Christmas lights strung inside the house's front window like she can't remember what lights are for, but she still nods back at you. Just as seriously. Then she turns and walks quickly away.

You go inside and go through motions of putting some coffee on to boil, and spit out the last of the copper taste into the kitchen sink. It's only after the coffee is done, when you're pouring some out and realizing abruptly that Timothy's body is both tired and sore, that you understand the bubbling in your chest as gratitude.  

 

*

 

You start pushing forward more often. When you can.

 

You start bringing things. A blanket, because the nights in the forest bring frost; medication, because she shakes like Timothy does and the pills prevent her from sliding under. Information.

 

Some things you bring by accident. Once on a walk --you don’t remember when, it could be any day, time slides, and you're always walking, whether together or alone-- you tripped and something you'd forgotten thumped out of your pocket into the ground. She'd turned at the noise, looked down and then up at you.  
Where did you get that?  
It's a knife, you realize when you pick it out of the dirt. The knife you stole, or won-- the takeaway from a fight you got into. You tell her this.

She stepped closer. Where did you get that?

You pause, but then understand. Alex Kralie. It had been dark in the house, until the flashlight had shone into the room and your eyes.  
She shakes her head.  
You thought the man you'd grabbed it from was _Alex,_ the camera one; you'd known nothing was chasing Timothy and him, the others were gone, who else could've been involved?

She shakes her head again, saying otherwise: there's a fourth. She describes him, and you remember; she calls him the scared one like it's specific.

That doesn't make sense. Your entire existence (hard to say 'life', maybe) has been fear one way or another. That, and the rage. Isn't everyone in this afraid?

She says she isn't. Her face is smooth when she says it; you're not any kind of expert on what honesty looks like, but you believe her. Awe is a candle flicker in your vision that stays.

 

*

 

You start to wonder things outside of your immediate survival, when you're around her.

She always seems to be waiting for you or asking you to her. You haven't been the one to wait for her, yet-- and it's been some time. Once you try anyway, going out to the forest without any plan, or fear behind setting your feet moving. When you can't find her in any of the places she usually climbs or sits by, you make to call out; it's then that you realize you aren't sure if she has a name.

It's not a terrible shock. _You_ don't have one of your own to tell her, anyway, if she'd asked. Since it's only the two of you and the insects in the forest, the sound of the other's voice was enough to call either of you over. What else did someone need a name for?

You made your way back to the tree in front of the parking lot instead of calling out anything, and wait for her there. She'll find you. You’ve learned to feel certain of that.

 

*

 

Months and months you've known her, and you know she’s real; she won’t disappear like the hallucinations you remember from when Timothy was young.

Still, seeing her sweater on the ground is almost as unsettling as seeing her mask on the tree had been, a long time ago. Body deflated into nothingness. You’d had this nightmare before.

 

You shove the thought off, shifting where you’re sitting on the concrete. She's not nothing. She’s solid, sitting in front of you. If anything she’s more solid without her sweater. Her bare arms are stark against the blur of the forest, even with the dirt smudged into her palms (digging in the grass for traces earlier). She’s here. Her shoulders are both stronger and more sharply bladed at the edges than you would've expected. The shirt that she's wearing is grey and short-sleeved, with rings of sweat soaked deep into it around her neck and the sides of her arms.

You wonder why she leaves the sweater on all the time in the stinking heat.

She looks at you out of the side of her eye and asks why you leave your jacket on all the time.

There's not a good answer. Except the one you feel under your head but can't say; the same idea of camoflauge and mirrors and _safer_ that your mask brings. That she gave.

 

Maybe she knows this; she doesn't say anything to your lack of answer, just nods and then turns her back to you again.

 

The knife in your hand is flipped open, and she's undone her hair. She’s been keeping it in a haphazard ponytail for a long time, using an elastic that’s held together by luck and luck only. Loose, it reaches the top of her hips. It catches on everything. Branches and twigs and small leaves hang here and there among thick knots; casualties of running through underbrush. Not a huge problem, but still better not to have to deal with.

The haircut is a returned favour for the painkillers she'd shoplifted for you. Or, really, you'd offered to cut her hair with your knife to save time when running and she'd came back the next day with strong painkillers tucked into her pocket. She’d handed them to you and said to call it even and good.

It was good. You would've just done it because you thought it needed doing, she couldn't run properly with her hair loose under the hood and she _needed_ to be able to run, but you appreciated the gesture. And after the encounter with Nothing your knee had flared up so bad you couldn't walk on it properly. The shoplifted pills helped.

Back at the house Timothy had T3s left over from a dental surgery; you could be in less pain if you took them. She would probably walk there with you. But you don't want to leave yet.  

 

You've realized that, in the past... however long you've been here. You want to spend time around her. You like being close to her.

That was a surprise. Another: how bright she's become to you, all her actions amplified. You were never _unobservant_ , but now the things you're noticing don't have to do with eyes watching or places to bolt until danger leaves. Instead, her hands in the dirt. How brown her eyes are, like the undersides of leaves. The lines of her jaw and her ears. The heavy smell that drifts off her hair when she pulls it back from her t-shirt, like soil and chemicals in pool water, which sinks into your head.

Her hair's surprisingly thin. You bunch it together carefully and begin sawing the knife back and forth, always watching so the blade's not too close to her skin. Your fingers brush the warm back of her neck a couple times as the strands start to come away.

She doesn't flinch at the touch. Shifts a little, maybe, so her hair hangs farther from her. She's holding the camera, keeping it facing away from herself as usual, turning it over and over in her hands. It'll capture a spinning kaleidoscope of trees and floor and rotted roof and trees. Maybe it'll make its way onto one of her signals eventually.

There's no humming danger around you, nothing but forest sounds.

 

It takes a while but finally all of her hair hangs in a reasonably straight line right above the nape of her neck. You put your hand on her shoulder to say _done,_ and she puts her hand up too.

You freeze, surprised. Her grip is strong like her arms and as warm as her neck had been.

She lets go after a second to stand up, running her hands through her hair to feel the difference. Some of the dirt from her fingers smudges onto yours when she pulls away. You don't mind.

 

*

 

You haven't stayed with her for this long in a while.  Every time you close your eyes-- Timothy's eyes--- you wait to wake up farther behind them, unable to move on your own. But so far your luck has held.

 

The heat in the air has been cracking the dirt, boiling the pavement and turning any exposed metal into embers. The clouds have been gathering.

When the rain finally comes it shows no signs of stopping. She watches it for a moment from under the shelter of a wide-limbed tree, her eyes going the dull blank colour that buzzes behind your eyelids sometimes when you're falling between worlds once every second.

It doesn't scare you. Her leaving without a word of warning doesn't worry you, either. You understand by now she's just following the current.

 

Still, the sight of her returning through the shack's brick and metal doorway brings you a small rush of relief.

The light from the sky is wavering, like day meeting night, the sun filtering down ever slightly through the clouds. Her eyes are back to normal when she pulls off her mask, clear and focused on what's in front of her regardless of the noise of waves inside her skull. She smiles at you.

 

That was still new. The first time you'd seen her smile was after a quiet afternoon without hunting or tracking or static. The two of you had just sat for a little while, passing time back and forth in word-sized pieces. You don't remember even what you said, but it doesn't end up mattering. You learned then you like her smile.

 

Now you return it with your own, a twitch of your lips that wasn't familiar a week ago, two weeks ago.

You're sitting on the concrete floor at the boundary between the shack and the forest with your arms draped on top of your knees, the toes of your shoes getting soaked. Watching the sky unfold itself. Thunder had cracked like bones breaking after she'd left, lightning stabbing into the dark, but all that had settled since.

The lightning had made you nervous. It reminds you too much of how it feels, in your head.

You've been clumsier than usual lately, dizzy, your hands floating and your face too hot. Your storms had come twice in the past three days, and the next time you black out you might not be the one waking up. You can't stop them, not entirely; not without the medication that sends you back down too. You should've been gone days ago, really. The only reason you haven't left is her.

 

Still, for now, the lightning has stopped, and she’s here. She sits down beside you, close enough that her left knee rests against your right. She watches the storm, too, silently. The strange golden light makes her face strange; sharper shadows and softer edges.

Rain comes down in steady sheets that smell vaguely of ozone and sweetness from flowering trees, somewhere. The sheer volume of noise comforts you.

 

When she stands up it's surprising, though not as surprising as when she takes off her gloves and stuffs them in her pocket. Her hands are caked with old dirt but there isn't any new-looking crust under her fingernails; no fighting to stay in one place when nothing pulls her elsewhere. At least not today. You remember how warm her fingers were when they held yours in thanks.

She steps off of the small concrete ledge and down onto grass, tipping her head up to look at the sky. There's too much branch-cover here to see through it.

You stand up, not sure what you're doing until you do it (always). Your knee pulses in pain once but then relaxes.

What you do is walk out to meet her, looking up too. Is it better if both of you can't see together? You wonder, but don't ask.

 

She looks at you. This isn't working, she says. It's not exactly a question. Most of her questions aren't.

You shrug. The rain is cold on your neck and it's soaking through your jacket, but you don't really mind. Even less than you've taught yourself not to. Your face is still hotter than usual; you hope it's too dark out for her to notice. Embarrassment, self-awareness’ cousin, and that’s new to you too.

Follow me, she says after a minute. She turns and walks forward through some of the trees.

This is always what the pair of you do: her following you, you following her, however you like. You walk behind her, mindful of branches under your sore leg.

 

Away from the thin shelter of the trees the rain only gets more insistent. You know if you stay longer it won't bother you after a while--you get used to dampness like you get used to the dark-- so you tip your head back and stare at the strange sky.

She does the same.  Her hair is smooth and dark and hangs back from her face like a stream. The hood of her sweater puddles around her shoulders. The golden air bleeds into the colours of her clothes and her clothes into it; looking at them makes your eyes hurt.

This, and how your head's been aching, and what you know it means, and everything is suddenly almost too hard for you to see. Her, the field beyond her, the sky. Everything disconnected, disjointed, blurring at the edges. But it's just your eyes.

You close them, listen to the steady unceasing thud of Timothy's heart in your borrowed chest, and you open your eyes again to images that blur back into a world.

 

She's looking at you, now, something that's not quite worry on her face. The trees around you are breathing out; you can still smell it in the air.

She touches your shoulder, a question.

Without thinking much about it, you reach up and take her hand.

 

The warmth in your throat and the hush roar of the rain protects you both. You're nervous; that's never happened before. Being nervous feels like being afraid and fear is terrible, but this is a good thing. You wouldn't be blushing (heat in your face, and you’re sick, but that’s not all it is) if it was terrible.

And she wouldn't be relaxed, either. But she is. Not off-guard, but not waiting.

You step forward, an intentional clue, and when she only raises her eyebrows you step forward again.

 

Her smile is slow and small and bright.

She takes her hand off your shoulder when you're close enough to feel her breathing, but you don't mind the lack of fingers tangled because your slightly-awkward press of a kiss is returned. Her lips are cracked but warm.

 

In your half-life the only constants are your own sickness, Timothy's sickness. You don’t make plans. Events happen or they don't. You accept it because you have no other choice. You move on. You are always in the moment; right now; nowhere else. Now. Here.

 

Here is good. This was a path you followed on purpose, and the air is sweet.

The ocean sound of the rain is twinned by heart-regular thrumming in your eardrums which poses no threat, and her hands and your hands are warm together. Thunderstorm-gold light is refracting all around you. You feel solid. Standing solidly on the wet ground. With her.

It's a beautiful moment. You want to stay here as long as you can.

 

 

////


End file.
